Spaniards are lovely people, but they think differently.  It didn’t take much persuasion to get me to jump in the ring.  I’m a “when in Rome” kind of guy.

In America, towns, cities and suburbs have some community event like homecoming or founder’s day, or maybe it’s tied into a holiday.  We might have a parade, then an area setup with carny rides and food trucks.  Spaniards have that also, but they do it differently.

Keep in mind that I was there thirty years ago, and EU has certainly tightened up on Spain.  Northern Europeans enjoy visiting Costa del Sol and Ibiza, but don’t endorse the wacky antics of traditional Spain.  Some Spanish traditions have been dialed down for modern sensibilities.

Rather than start or end the festival week with a parade, a Spanish town may chuck a goat out of a tower or release bulls to run around the town square.  This isn’t pandemonium, but an old custom that signifies something or other.  A Spaniard could explain it better.

Prominent cities do have parades, but fewer floats, and more traditional dress and religious artifacts. 

One might think that the parades are to show off their prettiest girls, but it isn’t like that.  All Spanish girls and women are attractive until they hit about 40 years old, then they turn hard and stringy.  The consensus is that Spanish men are the cause.

Pamplona is famous for the running of the bulls for the Fiesta de San Fermin, but many festivals, all over Spain, run the bulls every morning.  The photo at the top is at the festival in Azuqueca de Henares. 

Pamplona is for tourists, so Jose Maria and I ran at Azuqueca.  It seemed dangerous, but Jose Maria explained, “What could happen?”  That was the Spanish operating principle.

Jose Maria told me about the first time he ran the bulls, when he was 16.  A bull was right behind Jose Maria, and was bumping him in the ass with his head.  Jose Maria was afraid that he might stumble, so he grabbed the bull’s horns, which were on either side of him.

The bull was bobbing his head as he ran, so Jose Maria was raised off the ground with the bull’s horns.  He ran as he bounced.  It was fine.

To run the bulls, the participants just climb over the fence.  No signing anything or waivers.  We started about a quarter mile from the starting line and around a corner, to be out of the crowd.

Jose Maria explained what would happen.  A rocket will be sent up to signify that the bulls are released.  It was like a big bottle rocket. 

“Then we run?”    No.

The crowd at the starting line, will come running around the corner.

“Then we run?”  No, we run with bulls, not from men.

When the bulls come around the corner, we run.

The idea is to get close enough to the bulls, that you can touch the bull with a rolled up festival flyer.  Stay away from a lone bull, because that bull may do anything.  Stay toward the sides, don’t get in the middle, and once you touch a bull, jump up on the barricade along the route.

When the bulls came around the corner, it looked like a regular TV stampede.  I turned, and ran right over a guy.  I don’t know how close I got to a bull, I ran my ass off, but you can imagine it was a full-on panic response.

The best part is that the run ends in the bull ring.  It’s supposed to end in the bull ring.  In my city, Alcala de Heneras, the gate wasn’t opened in time, so people piled up in the entrance way, and the bulls just went over the top of the runners.  Somebody died.

Here’s what it’s supposed to look like as people run into the ring with the bulls.  This is at Pamplona.

Pamplona is famous for the running of the bulls, so draws way too many tourists.  We didn’t run or jump in the ring.

After the bulls are in the ring, people can just climb over the fence, and jump in the ring.  There are a lot of people in there with a bunch of bulls.  Some of the bulls are pulled out, so there might be four or five in there at this time.  This is Pamplona a couple of minutes later.

The goal is to tempt a bull in to charging, then runaway or dodge behind something.  The tricky part is that a bull is shorter than a person, so if it’s crowded enough, a bull isn’t visible until the crowd parts.

This guy and the bull were crazy.  The streamer caught on his horn kept confusing and irritating the bull.  People kept their distance because the bull was erratic.  That guy kneeling down was standing up, jumping and waving his arms to get the bull’s attention.   The bull saw him and started charging from 50 yards away.

The bull was in full, Bugs Bunny, angry charging bull mode.  The guy went into that kneeling position shown in the photo.

As the bull got closer, the bull slowed down.  When I took the photo, the bull was walking.  The bull walked up to the guy, bumped him with his head, the guy toppled over, the streamer fell off, and the bull ran somewhere else.  I thought he was going to die.

That is every morning of a festival.  There is a bull fight in the afternoon, but I didn’t go in for that.

There are other activities at festivals.  This one was popular and seemed dangerous.  There was a fenced off area where little kids could play with tools.  They were supervised by teenagers, so I guess it was okay.

That little kid in purple, had a ditch rake, and was 2 feet away from a kid smaller than himself.  He could have killed that kid.  There was a section where kids were building a little wall with bricks and mortar.  One little girl was stomping around in the mortar, and lost her shoe. 

Jose Maria didn’t see the problem, they were having fun.  What could happen?

That’s how Spaniards celebrate their festivals.  It’s also how they drive and work and live. 

My project was in a Vetrotex plant that was under construction.  Welders had 440 V power cords laying in puddles.  There was Hudepohl beer in the vending machine for 50 Pesetas.  That was about 50 cents.  I saw one construction worker buy six cans at lunch time.  I assume (hope) that was for him and his friends.

Four pairs of conveyor ovens were being installed.  They were about 10 feet wide and 14 feet high.  Here’s a photo.

An electrician was working on top of one oven, but needed to get to the top of the adjacent oven.  Rather than go down the ladder, walk 10 feet, and go up the other ladder, he grabbed the ceiling truss, and monkey walked across the gap.  What could happen?

In the past thirty years, Spain has certainly gotten more sophisticated, but it’s in their nature.  As the country has gotten more technologically advanced and dependent on modern conveniences, did they worry about what would happen if the grid goes down?  I doubt it.  What could happen?